wall street journal
TECHNOLOGY
NOVEMBER 2, 2010, 3:56 P.M. ET
NOVEMBER 2, 2010, 3:56 P.M. ET
By MARC CHAMPION
ISTANBUL—YouTube was blocked and unblocked again in Turkey on Tuesday, as a dispute continued over the popular video-sharing site's refusal to remove videos deemed illegal by Turkish courts, world-wide.
Just days after a Turkish court lifted a more than two-year ban on YouTube, Turks attempting to directly access YouTube on Tuesday evening again encountered a blank screen with a message informing them that YouTube was blocked as part of a May 2008 court order. That ruling had demanded the company, a unit of Google Inc., should remove various videos considered insulting to the republic's founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, world-wide.
Hours later, however, the site was accessible again. The four videos had been removed from the site two years ago. Officials at Turkey's Telecommunications Transmission Directorate could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for Google also declined to comment. The two sides are due to meet later in the week for talks.
Saturday's court decision came after a group of self-described "volunteers" working with Turkish authorities succeeded in taking the four offending videos off YouTube.com, using an automated copyright protection system. The move effectively achieved the court order without Google's involvement.
On Monday, however, YouTube said it would restore the videos, describing the copyright claim as invalid. The statement appeared to reject what the volunteers had hoped would be a solution to end a ban that is unpopular within Turkey and damaging to its reputation abroad.
At its root, according to media analysts in Turkey, the copyright plan sought to circumvent rather than resolve the core dispute between Google and the Turkish government, namely that Google was unwilling to set a precedent for other governments by allowing Turkey to force the company to remove material world-wide. YouTube had only blocked direct access to the videos within Turkey.
Earlier Tuesday, the directorate, which is responsible for enforcing Turkey's tough Internet laws, appeared to up the stakes in its dispute with Google.
The agency issued a statement warning YouTube that if it did not comply with a recent court ruling that it should remove a video at the heart of a political sex scandal earlier this year, then another order to shut down YouTube would have to be issued, the state news agency Anadolu Ajansi reported.
The video in that case showed Deniz Baykal, the then-leader of the Republican People's Party, Turkey's main opposition party, getting dressed in a hotel room with a lover. The footage, secretly filmed and released inside Turkey, caused Mr. Baykal to resign. Mr. Baykal was not available to comment Tuesday.—Ayla Albayrak in Istanbul contributed to this article.
Write to Marc Champion at marc.champion@wsj.com
ISTANBUL—YouTube was blocked and unblocked again in Turkey on Tuesday, as a dispute continued over the popular video-sharing site's refusal to remove videos deemed illegal by Turkish courts, world-wide.
Just days after a Turkish court lifted a more than two-year ban on YouTube, Turks attempting to directly access YouTube on Tuesday evening again encountered a blank screen with a message informing them that YouTube was blocked as part of a May 2008 court order. That ruling had demanded the company, a unit of Google Inc., should remove various videos considered insulting to the republic's founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, world-wide.
Hours later, however, the site was accessible again. The four videos had been removed from the site two years ago. Officials at Turkey's Telecommunications Transmission Directorate could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for Google also declined to comment. The two sides are due to meet later in the week for talks.
Saturday's court decision came after a group of self-described "volunteers" working with Turkish authorities succeeded in taking the four offending videos off YouTube.com, using an automated copyright protection system. The move effectively achieved the court order without Google's involvement.
On Monday, however, YouTube said it would restore the videos, describing the copyright claim as invalid. The statement appeared to reject what the volunteers had hoped would be a solution to end a ban that is unpopular within Turkey and damaging to its reputation abroad.
At its root, according to media analysts in Turkey, the copyright plan sought to circumvent rather than resolve the core dispute between Google and the Turkish government, namely that Google was unwilling to set a precedent for other governments by allowing Turkey to force the company to remove material world-wide. YouTube had only blocked direct access to the videos within Turkey.
Earlier Tuesday, the directorate, which is responsible for enforcing Turkey's tough Internet laws, appeared to up the stakes in its dispute with Google.
The agency issued a statement warning YouTube that if it did not comply with a recent court ruling that it should remove a video at the heart of a political sex scandal earlier this year, then another order to shut down YouTube would have to be issued, the state news agency Anadolu Ajansi reported.
The video in that case showed Deniz Baykal, the then-leader of the Republican People's Party, Turkey's main opposition party, getting dressed in a hotel room with a lover. The footage, secretly filmed and released inside Turkey, caused Mr. Baykal to resign. Mr. Baykal was not available to comment Tuesday.—Ayla Albayrak in Istanbul contributed to this article.
Write to Marc Champion at marc.champion@wsj.com
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